Tutti Frutti

tutti frutti (also tutti-frutti), a term in popular use in a wide number of languages and countries around the world, designates a variety of confections that involve mixtures of fruits or fruit flavors. The term is derived from the Italian words for “all fruits.” In Italy itself “tutti frutti” is not a traditional, fixed culinary term, though the combination of words, especially with the definite article—tutti i frutti—naturally occurs with its literal meaning.

A likely place where “tutti frutti” was first coined as a culinary term is New York, whence the earliest attestation (1834) in connection with ice cream. See ice cream. Given the central role played by Italians in the development of ice cream and its subsequent spread into and around English-speaking lands, it is possible that the term was actually coined by an Italian. Italians were prominent ice cream makers in New York, London, and elsewhere as early as the latter part of the eighteenth century.